


Genuine Article

by sanguinity



Series: sang's moreholmes [13]
Category: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (TV 1980)
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Disguise, Episode Related, First Time, M/M, Pining, Porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-20 14:55:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13720065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity
Summary: I realised the limited terms that were on offer, and my stomach sank. I did not want a common street tough, nor even the extraordinary one he might have been in another life.I wanted Watson, my Watson, inasmuch as I had any right to call him mine.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Missing scene and episode tag for "The Case of Harry Rigby." Spoilers for the case, but no knowledge of the case is necessary. 
> 
> (What can I say? There was that _one moment_ near the end of the ep, and I couldn't not write porn for it.)
> 
> Thanks and curses to PhoenixFalls, without whom this would be languishing in my drafts folder in perpetuity. Thanks also to dancesontrains for Britpick.
> 
> Complete, with weekly updates.

To my consternation, Watson did not redress himself after our little masquerade for Mrs Bailey. I had expected him to return his person to that of a gentleman once she was led away in darbies, but he made no move to refasten his shirt or waistcoat, nor did he retrieve his cravat, collar, or cuffs from me. He simply laid his jacket and topcoat over his bared arm and strolled up to the next street, dressed exactly as he was, in search of a cabstand. I followed behind, carrying his hat and stick, confounded by his continued _déshabillé._

Watson seemed to believe his state of partial undress without consequence — and given the hour, it _should_ have been without consequence. It was full dark, the streets all but deserted. Lestrade and his constables had left with their prisoner. Mrs Hudson would already be abed by the time we returned to Baker Street. There should have been no one to note or mind Watson’s continued state of undress besides myself.

And why should _I_ have minded it? 

And yet I could not put it from my mind.

Only two hours earlier— No, I shall not prevaricate, it began two months earlier, when Watson strode into Baker Street, well-built and beautiful, discreetly bearing the wound of a man who had seen hard military action, and yet carrying none of the self-aggrandizing bluster that so plagues the officers of Her Majesty’s Army. I was much taken with him, and apparently forgetting that we were not blushing schoolboys, I found myself inviting him to view a dead body. Watson is above all else a generous and well-mannered man: he did not laugh; he simply came with me, curious to see why I was offering him such a peculiar gift. Even then I might have saved myself from my fascination with him, but he focused all his intellect, which is by no means shabby, on understanding my deductions and methods. No one at the Yard had ever done such a thing. The experience was revelatory. Indeed, I revelled in it.

And as Watson began, so he continued. Only this evening, I had led him into a convenient alley, set my hands on his coat collar, and said, “Quickly now, I need you to be Harry Rigby.” By the time I had tugged his overcoat from his shoulders, he had caught up to my plans and was shrugging out of his jacket. Without a word of coordination between us, he went to work on his cuffs while I set about ridding him of his neckwear. His cravat pin, cravat, and collar stud all went into my pocket, but I only realised our mutual position when I stepped close and reached behind him to detach his collar: we stood chest-to-chest in a dark alley, working in feverish concert to undress him. 

I sought something safe to look at, and found nothing. Neither his lowered lashes — his gaze was on his cuffs, thank god — nor his mouth, nor his newly-exposed throat. His throat was especially dangerous. I averted my eyes from his person entirely, lest he look up from his wrists and catch me staring.

His collar at last came free and I stepped back from him, if only a half-pace. His collar went into my pocket, and he tucked his cuffs and cuff-links in after it. I busied myself unhooking his watch, trying to focus on anything but his hands inside my clothing. “Waistcoat,” I murmured, and reached for his shirt placket. His fingers flew down the line of his waistcoat buttons, while I did the same with the shirt buttons above. I opened and resettled the cloth at his neck, trying to make it look less pressed and starched, and noted the lightly curled hair at his breast, where it descended out of sight beneath his vest. He moved to shrug himself out of his waistcoat, and I, seeing that it would look better hanging loose, reached to pull it back up onto his shoulders—

The motion tugged him off-balance, a half-step toward me, and I froze at his sudden nearness. His body’s warm scent, newly liberated from his clothing, rose up in my nostrils.

Time might have stopped. I certainly did.

“Harry Rigby,” Watson murmured.

I took a deep breath, deliberately released my hands from his clothing, and stood back from him.

He looked nothing like a newly-freed gaol-bird, ungroomed and the worse for wear. He looked like a man who had been proper and trim only moments before, when for reasons unspecified he had chosen to partially undress in a dark alley. 

My mind clamoured to specify the reasons that men choose to partially undress in dark alleys.

“Roll your sleeves,” I instructed, and turned away to gather some soot and my wits.

The soot was an error, I realised as I shaded his jaw. It brought him closer to the character I needed him to embody — Harry Rigby would not shave as closely and frequently as my Watson did — but darkening Watson’s evening shadow required me to hold his face in my hands, to stroke my thumbs across—

With a wrench, I made myself not think of it.

Just as I did not think of his hair, curling lush and cool between my fingers, as I smoothed it back more tightly to his skull.

I heard the door of Mrs Bailey’s pub, and there was no time for anything else. I passed Watson the flat cap I had lifted earlier, pointed out his mark, exhorted him to keep his face in shadow, and forbade him to speak lest he betray himself with his accent.

He performed beautifully, of course, and on no further instruction than that. By the time I had positioned myself where I could hear and see but not be seen, Watson's posture had loosened and lengthened, and I found myself regarding the man he might have become had he never been sent from sunburnt Australia to green mother England. If he had not attended an English boarding school, if he had not served in Her Majesty’s Army, if he had not eventually come to live — do not think of it! — in Baker Street.

Mrs Bailey was likewise impressed by Watson’s figure, although her regard was somewhat different from mine. She presumed him to be her would-be murderer, and her crimes tumbled from her lips in a desperate bid to save herself. When she had spoken enough, Watson finally stepped into the light. She was struck dumb at the sight of him. It was a malady with which I had some sympathy.

That should have been the end of the business, barring only testifying at trial. But after we handed Mrs Bailey into Lestrade’s custody, Watson, instead of re-dressing himself to his customary standards, strolled into the next street exactly as he was and hired us a cab home.

I was much distracted by his forearms during the ride, the skin taut and unblemished, three shades lighter than the backs of his hands. I had long thought it ludicrous that a man could lose his reason at the a glimpse of a feminine ankle, and yet there sat I, entranced by Watson’s newly-bared forearms. It was ridiculous. _I_ was ridiculous. Sinew and muscle shifted and flexed bewitchingly, gliding beneath his skin as he spread his fingers, turned his palm upwards, made a fist—

I belatedly realised his motions were deliberate, and knowing I had been caught out staring, I dragged my eyes up to his.

His expression was partially obscured by the shadows that travelled his face as we passed from one gas-lamp to the next, and yet he held my eyes for a long moment. Then his eyes dropped to my mouth. In spite of myself, I felt my own lips part in response, my breath threatening to stick in my chest. His mouth quirked, and he looked away. 

He made no move to roll down his sleeves, nor did he otherwise retreat from me. His shoulder and elbow continued to jostle mine as we rattled along; his thigh pressed mine on the turns. I lost track of the streets as we progressed through London, too absorbed in committing to memory those intermittent points of contact.

I was nearly beyond speech by the time we reached Baker Street, and far too flustered to look him in the eye as we exited from the cab. I paid the cabbie, suggested that Watson should go up ahead of me, and took a moment in the rapidly-cooling night to try to calm myself. Those scant sixty seconds did little good.

Watson had not lit the lamp in our rooms. His jacket and overcoat lay over the back of his chair; he himself stood near the window, his chin down, silhouetted by the light from the street. 

I shut our sitting room door behind me, and then, quite deliberately, my heart hammering in my chest, I turned the key in the lock.

The mechanism clicking over was like a gunshot in that silence. Watson turned his head and stood there for a moment, his expression backlit and invisible. Then he turned to face me fully, his bearing lengthening and loosening just as it had when he impersonated Harry Rigby. 

I realised the limited terms that were on offer, and my stomach sank.

Oh, I still wanted him, I wanted _this,_ but I wanted _Watson._ I did not want a common street tough, nor even the extraordinary one he might have been in another life. I wanted _my_ Watson, inasmuch as I had any right to call him _mine._

But I had already spent two months closely observing him as we knocked about our rooms together, two months keenly attentive for any sign that he wanted me in return. He had remained staunchly, staidly proper in all his dealings with me, even as he wandered about in his shirtsleeves, lost his composure over my chemical experiments, allowed me to manhandle him for a case, or simply lounged so deeply into his chair as to become nearly parallel to the floor. No matter how casual he became in my presence, no matter how familiar I allowed myself to be with him, there had been no flicker of interest in him, not until tonight. 

Tonight, when he had been impersonating someone else.

It was a disappointment, to be sure, but there was no real decision to be made. If this persona was the only way he would have me, then that was the part of him I would have.

He advanced upon me, nearly prowling across our rug, and I stepped to meet him, reaching for him, lest this opportunity be lost in some misreading of intent. He took my chin in his hand, and my neck loosened in response. I was willing to move however he wanted, _be_ anything he wanted, just—

“Look at you,” he said, his vowels strange, and my attention snagged on the accent he was attempting. “So hungry for it. Who would have thought you went in for a bit of rough?”

It took me a moment to dissect the layers in those vowels, but he was attempting the sounds of his youth, the voice he would have grown into had he never left Australia. But the accent wasn't pure Ballarat: I could hear his school-years threaded through those distorted vowels, the torments his fellows must have put him through to cause him to discipline his speech so severely that he could no longer summon the original shape of it. I regretted the presumed misery of those years — of course I did! — but his speech made eminently clear that whatever man he might have become had he never come to England, that man was irrevocably gone, his very words beyond my Watson's reach. In an instant, via a few mangled vowels, he had become _my_ Watson again: a man of a very specific history, one that could not be so easily exchanged for another.

_ “Watson,” _I said in relieved recognition, and leaned in to kiss him.

He did not permit it, but tilted my face away from his and set his lips against my jaw, my neck. I shuddered at the touch of his mouth on my skin. 

“Sherlock,” he said in those same, twisted vowels. 

Hearing my name in his mouth, my name in his own specific, remnants of an accent, my name as it might be spoken by not a hundred men in London, I groaned. 

He made a dark noise in response. He set his mouth against my neck, high above my collar, and it was suddenly intolerable to me that he was so restricted in the canvas available to him. I unbuttoned my cape, letting it fall to the floor, then tore at my necktie, my collar stud. Then Watson was helping, efficiently opening my shirt, pulling the fabric clear of my neck in an echo of my actions to him earlier. He set his teeth against the newly bared join of my neck and shoulder, and I clutched my fingers in his hair. “Harder,” I instructed, wanting his mark in my skin, wanting there to be no question of his intent.

He obliged, setting his teeth more firmly against my shoulder, worrying a mark where none but I would see. I hissed, leaning into the sting of it, and my nose bumped the stolen cloth cap. It reeked of some other man, and the intrusion was utterly offensive. I snatched the object from his head and tossed it away, then nosed through his hair, searching for his own scent, uncontaminated by the interloper’s. My fingers kneaded tightly in his his shirt, pulling him to me, as he continued to suck painfully hard at my skin.

We went like that for a few minutes, inelegantly mouthing and tugging at each other. I had managed little more than getting my hands under his shirt, onto the broad, warm skin of his back, when he thrust his hand past the waistband of my trousers, into my drawers, and roughly grasped my member. I pushed into his hand, crying out his name. Abruptly consumed with the notion that I must return the favour lest he find our endeavour not worth his while, I scrabbled at the waistband of his trousers. We tripped on my Inverness and stumbled against the wall. He swore and pulled back. “Sod this, I’m not having you against the door,” he said, his vowels still distorted in his mouth. He stepped to his own door, not two paces from where we stood, and roughly pulled me after him.

The scent of his room hit me like a wall: his hair cream, his shaving soap, his eau de cologne. I stopped on his threshold, momentarily overwhelmed by the immediacy of it. The immediacy of _him_.

“Holmes?” he asked in his own voice, and I re-focused on him. Watson was a beautifully dishevelled disaster, his hair and clothing awry, his cockstand proudly distorting the line of his trousers. There were still echoes of the Rigby disguise about him — the rolled sleeves, the darkening at his jaw — but he looked like exactly what he was: a gorgeous, vital man who had been interrupted halfway to ravishing or ravishment. 

I swallowed.

“John,” I answered and closed with him, determined to get his shirt off him. I wanted to see the line of his shoulders, unimpeded by the many layers of fabric he usually wore. 

He shrugged out of his braces, and reaching behind his head, pulled off in one smooth movement both his loosened shirt and the vest beneath. He let me look my fill of him, but when my fingers drifted across the scarring on his shoulder, he pushed my hand away. 

He wrapped his hand around the nape of my neck, hard and secure, and pulled my head down to speak into my ear. “You’re not holding up your end,” he said, the earlier accent back. He put his free hand in the open neck of my clothing, gathering shirt, waistcoat, and jacket together in his fist, and tugged meaningfully. “Strip for me.”

The sound I made was high, excited, and frankly embarrassing, but my hands flew to my jacket buttons, and I dropped the garment where I stood. My waistcoat followed, landing heavily from the weight of my watch. I was working feverishly at my cufflinks when Watson roughly undid my belt and trouser buttons and shoved his hand in my drawers again. I gasped as his hand closed on me.

This time, he kissed me, too.

For a time, there was nothing in my universe but John Watson. His mouth on mine, his one hand still clasping me securely by my neck, his other slowly and deliberately frigging my cock. I was vaguely aware that there was something I was supposed to be doing, but all I could think of was the utter astonishment, the wonderment, of John Watson.

He gave my neck a shake. “Come along,” he said into my ear again. “Use that great, beautiful brain of yours, and strip for me.”

With a wrench, I made myself return my attention to my cuffs, and held it there even as he resumed kissing me. Somehow I got the damned things open and my shirt off, and then because there was nothing to be done about my vest until he released me — a condition for which I would never advocate — I shoved my trousers and drawers down off my hips. I clung to him and kissed him back.

“Good enough,” he declared, and steered me to his bed. 

Tangled in my trousers as I was, I kept my feet only through Watson’s grip on me. I sat down heavily, off-balance, when the bed bumped the back of my knees. He sank to the floor to undo my shoes, and I took advantage of the opportunity to peel off my vest. I cursed him for still having his coordination as he helped me clear away the entangling mess of my footwear and trousers—

—and then I cursed him quite differently, as he took the tip of my prick into his hot, wet, muscular mouth.

John Watson’s _mouth._

It was patently not the first time he had done this, could _never_ have been the first time. He was entirely too confident, too bold. It was eminently clear that at some point in his life, John Watson had gone down on his knees before some other man and pulled him deep into the strong, sucking, silk of his mouth. He had enjoyed it, too, my Watson, enjoyed it enough to repeat the act. This enthusiasm was not feigned, could not possibly be new. I pawed at his shoulders, his hair, unable to stop touching him. My focus was too scattered to make anything of the questions of _when_ or _where_ or _who,_ the images of possible places and times coming too quickly for proper consideration. 

But those were not the questions that burned; the question that consumed me, the one I could not put aside, was whether John Watson had approached these other men as _himself,_ or whether with them, too, he had first required an alternate persona. 

The thought that some other man might have been graced by _John Watson,_ John Watson _as_ John Watson, that he had possibly shared his actual self with a stranger as he could not bring himself to do with me—

Watson hissed and drew off me. I had clawed him, I think, in my bitter jealousy. He pushed upright, pressing me back into his bed. “Budge up,” he instructed me as he crawled over me, and I did. His prick bumped wetly across mine, and I shoved up into the contact. I clutched at his buttocks, trying to draw him closer — when had he lost his trousers? — and hooked a leg around his as he straddled my thigh. Watson's legs were a gift to mankind, strong and shapely, and I inwardly babbled away about his being an Adonis. Only by concentrated effort did I keep my discomposure — and my consequent humiliation — locked away behind my lips.

In an effort to better silence myself, I reached up to kiss him. Once again he did not allow it, but tucked his chin, looking down between our bodies. His warm, rough hand wrapped around both our cocks together, and I whimpered, unable to be silent. _"John."_

“Quiet,” he chided me, taking his weight on his elbow so he could cover my mouth with his hand. "You’ll have the house down around our ears.”

I tried to be silent for him. Tried to be silent for him, as his scent rose from his bedding and surrounded me, his weight heavy above me as I rutted up into him. I sucked his fingers into my mouth, needing to express my devotion. I tongued and caressed them, as much as the constraints of our position would allow, scraping at his fingerpads with my teeth as I never would have permitted myself to do with his cock.

It was that thought — the thought of his cock, how I should worship it if he should let me have it — that had me spending in his hand. He murmured my name against my jaw as I shuddered. It was _Sherlock_ this time, said in those affected, distorted vowels, continuing his attempt at being someone else. My euphoria soured in my stomach. 

Then his touch became too rough, and I flinched away. He released me, but continued to tug on his own prick.

It struck me, then, as he jerked and juddered above me, that I had been useless in this encounter: any pleasure Watson had experienced up until this point had been in spite of me, rather than because of me. The thought was intolerable, and I pulled his hand away from himself, determined that he should at least spend himself at my hand instead of his. He let me do it, transferring his weight to both his elbows with a relieved sigh, that position far easier for him to hold. His cock was lavishly slick from my fluids, and I rippled my fingers experimentally along his shaft, twisting and tightening my grip, listening to his breathing, attempting to determine what he best enjoyed. I was still muzzy and clumsy with my own spending — and Watson was damnably, determinedly silent — but I was Sherlock Holmes, the purported master of observation, and what John Watson would not tell me outright, I was determined to glean from his muscles and breathing.

Once again he tucked his face into my shoulder rather than let me kiss him. I pressed my forehead to his temple and murmured encouragement as I twisted, tugged, and pulled. Heat was pouring from his body — I was nearly smothered by his warmth — but the skin of his back was cold from his sweat and the cool air of the room. His rich sex-reek surrounded me, and I gloried in the privilege. I poured all my devotion into the act, determined that his pleasure should not be diminished by my unfamiliarity with him, with his preferred method of touching himself—

—and then my hand was wet with his pleasure as he trembled and twitched. He spent silently, his breath shuddering through gritted teeth. I reverently mouthed at his jaw while his seed commingled with mine on my stomach. 

For a few blissful moments he sagged on top of me, letting me take his weight, before he rolled away with a muttered apology. 

He lay next to me, his breath still unsteady, his face half-hidden behind his hand. 

My euphoria bled away into the cold air of the room. I felt strangely exposed and foolish, keenly aware of how ridiculous I had allowed myself to become. I sat up.

“Holmes?” he asked.

“It’s late. The maid—”

“Won’t be up for hours yet,” he said. I felt his weight shift, his hand on my arm.

“It still won’t do to fall asleep and be caught in your bed.” I stood, pulling away from his touch. I squeezed his fingers as I went, unable to resist that last intimacy.

I knelt to gather my clothing. Was there ever anything more undignified, than stooping for one’s clothes in nothing but socks and suspenders under the watchful eye of one’s erstwhile lover? But then I envisioned the tableau reversed: Watson would be delectable in such a position. The indignity of it was reserved solely for me.

He pushed himself up to both elbows. “Holmes,” he said again, his voice rich with obstinacy.

He was such a beautiful man. It wasn’t just when I was sex-addled that I wanted to call him Adonis. “Don’t trouble yourself,” I told him, my smile coming easily. I patted his knee. “I’ll straighten away the sitting room, and see you in the morning.” 

By then, perhaps, I would have recovered some of my composure. 

“Holmes, I really don’t think—”

I fled, rather than deal with the reproach in his voice. 


	2. Chapter 2

It was a long night, with ample time to regret my discomposure in front of Watson. I washed and straightened away the sitting room, doing what I could to re-establish the normal order of things, and yet I still felt his scent on my skin, the burn of his teeth in my flesh. I slept little that night, and when I finally gave up on that endeavour, I spent longer than usual at my mirror, covering the marks of Watson's teeth with greasepaint. If I spent some of that time in reverie, pressing my fingertips into those bruises, we need not speak of it.

Watson was late coming to breakfast, and when he finally emerged, no casual observer would have suspected his adventures of the previous night: he was clean-shaven and well-pressed, every inch a respectable English gentleman. But I am no casual observer, and the small variations in his costume — his spare watch at his waist, his fully-buttoned jacket — spoke volumes to me.

His jacket, in fact, felt like the strongest possible rebuke. I had been much taken with his forearms the night before, which had not escaped his notice. That on this morning of all mornings he should feel shirtsleeves to be insufficient protection from my gaze… I returned my eyes to my paper. It was a blow, indeed.

"Good morning, Watson," I said, proud that my turmoil was not evident in my voice. "Best hurry, I was considering taking the last of the marmalade for myself." He hesitated in responding, and I tensed in spite of myself.

"There's still jam, I presume? Then I'll content myself with that." 

I shut my eyes in disappointment. He could not have mistaken the offering; he had watched often enough as I jealously guarded my marmalade from Lestrade. Combined with his overly formal dress — his jacket and cravat might as well have been a suit of armour — it was clear that he wished the night's intimacies to be as strictly separated from the morning as the persona of Harry Rigby was from this exceedingly starched gentleman. It was a great disappointment, but there was nothing for it: if those were the terms he wished for going forward, then those were the terms he would have. 

I gave him a brief smile and passed him the sporting pages; he handed me the marmalade that I had been so forward as to put by his place. I put the pot well out of his way, where it would not trouble him, and attempted to return my attention to the paper.

I fear I made a poor job of it. I was keenly aware of his eyes on me, and I felt every mark of the night before like a brand. The greasepaint on my throat felt particularly conspicuous. The scent of tallow and jasmine pervaded my nostrils; the oily slide of the pomatum clung to my skin. The wrongness of the patch nagged at me: it wasn't greasepaint I wanted on my throat, but his teeth again.

In hopes of covering my discomfiture, I produced scissors from my dressing-gown pocket and began dismantling the _Times_ into its component parts. 

Watson rustled in irritation. "I haven't read that yet, you know," he reminded me.

"Mm," I agreed, industriously rendering the front section unreadable. He would need to go in search of his own copy now, and I gave thanks for it. Having him away from our flat, damn him, would ease my state of mind.

He presently finished his tea and toast — I scowled at his raspberry jam — then left the table. He crossed to the coat-tree, but instead of donning his coat and going out in search of a paper of his own, he rummaged through my overcoat pockets. Looking for his jewelry and other effects, no doubt. 

"On my dressing table," I instructed him. 

"Your dressing table?" he asked, as if he had expected me to brave his room again last night to return his effects, or worse, to leave them on the sideboard for all the household to gawk at.

"Mm," I agreed. Removing his things to my room was perfectly discreet: no one in the household but ourselves could likely distinguish my collar from his, and fewer still would casually enter my room. I generally endeavoured to keep my personal chaos out from under Watson's feet, but that meant that it proliferated, nearly unchecked, in my own room. Mrs Hudson and the maid avoided my room altogether, claiming that I had deliberately booby-trapped it against intruders. Even Watson was not so bold as to invade my room lightly.

But this morning, it seemed, was to be the exception. He squared his shoulders, and with his military bearing coming to the fore — I could not help but turn my head to admire it — he marched to my bedroom door and disappeared inside.

I listened to his progress as he negotiated the clutter of my room. He found his cravat and jewelry easily enough, and I heard him rummage about in search of the rest. I resisted my proprietary desire to go to my door and watch. 

"Holmes," he called out in frustration, after he had been at it for several minutes, "How is it possible that you could lose a collar and cuffs in a mere six hours?"

I didn't attempt to contain my smile. I had not, strictly speaking, _lost_ them.

I heard him open and shut my dressing table drawers, then my wardrobe doors, muttering to himself as he went. Eventually he abandoned the search. I hurriedly turned my nose back to my paste pot and reference books, just catching a glimpse of him exchanging his good watch for his spare one. 

I would enjoy the privilege of watching him dress some morning. I would enjoy even more the pleasure of disrupting his dressing. I could make a good job of it, too, I was sure, if he were to permit me that singular liberty. Certainly I had creativity enough to bring to bear on the matter.

"Shall I assume my collar and cuffs met the same fate as our best and second-best teapot?" he asked, interrupting my reverie.

"Linen and pasteboard is hardly a useful medium for brewing alkali compounds," I scoffed.

He snorted in amusement, before disappearing into his room, evidently putting his recovered jewelry away. "Don't forget we have dinner with Lady Medowin tonight," he reminded me when he re-emerged. "I've already had to give her our regrets twice."

"I haven't forgotten," I assured him, determinedly keeping my attention on my clippings. "I'll meet you here, and we'll go over together, shall we?"

"Capital," he pronounced, and taking up his overcoat, he left. 

 

That evening saw me not quite as punctual about Lady Medowin's dinner as Watson might have preferred. I could hear him pacing the sitting room as I finished dressing; occasionally he called out encouragement to hurry. 

"Holmes!" he bellowed again, just as I came into the sitting-room. His back had been to my door, and he turned at the sound of it. He stopped where he was, staring. Perhaps he had thought me still in my dressing gown, pettily expressing my displeasure at a social evening. It was, I admit, something I had been known to do. But I had promised him that nothing would keep me from getting him to Lady Medowin's this time, and even my disappointment about the previous evening wasn't reason enough to break that promise.

I must admit, it was pleasing to have Watson's full attention. I am not a terribly vain man — I have very little to be vain about — but I daresay that I was as smart in my evening dress as I ever was. I allowed myself a moment to preen under his gaze, then gestured to the door. "After you, doctor." 

But instead of taking his hat and proceeding to the door, Watson frowned, his attention instead having caught on… It must have been that _damned_ spot of greasepaint on my neck. 

"You have a…" he said, taking my elbow, entirely business-like. "You have a smudge, here—" and his gloved fingertips touched my collar and neck, brushing the skin that he had marked. I could not quite repress my shudder, but I do not think he noticed it. "Oh," he said, frowning at his white-gloved finger-tips — a little of the colour had evidently come away on them. Then, his intonation speaking volumes, _"Oh."_

He lifted his eyes in time to catch me staring at his mouth. I felt heat rise in my cheeks.

He did not let me go, as he absolutely should have done, if he wanted me to change my collar in time for Lady Medowin's dinner. Instead, his free hand, the one that had just been touching my neck, settled on my shoulder, directly over the spot I had encouraged him to mangle the night before. He swept his thumb over that hidden mark, then with his eyes still on mine, pressed his thumb into that tender flesh. His expression was utterly impassive, but his eyes—

I was unable to look away from that avid gaze. I could feel the heat in my cheeks, my pulse under my skin—

I swallowed, and tried to remember how to breathe.

"Lady Medowin," I reminded him, my throat tight.

He didn't react for a moment. Then, "Of course." Regrettably, he took back his hand. He cleared his throat. "Yes." 

And yet he did not look away. I felt the doubled imprint of his grip on my shoulder, both just now and from the night before, the memory of his scent surrounding me, his breath juddering above me in the dark. Watson's thoughts did not seem so distant from mine, and I felt my cheeks flame further. Would he forgive me if we truanted Lady Medowin's table again? Surely that good lady wouldn't be too surprised if we yet again failed to arrive?

At his side, Watson's hand twitched.

There was a step outside the door — _Lestrade,_ of all the cursed, inconvenient people — and the question of truanting Lady Medowin's table abruptly became moot. 

"Holmes!" the Inspector called out as he rapped at the door, a mere knock alone apparently insufficient to his tizzy.

Watson stepped back from me. "Go change your collar," he instructed. "I'll get the door."

Lestrade and Watson's conversation was perfectly audible through my door as I retrieved a fresh collar and repaired the paint on my throat. It seemed our triumph in the Rigby case had netted Lestrade a dinner engagement of his own, his with the commissioner of police. It would have been a neat little coup for him, if only he had understood the case as it unfolded. However, as matters stood he was only in a position to embarrass himself in front of his superior. He had come to us, as ever, for assistance.

Watson, bless him, took pity on the man and set about explaining the case to him point-by-point. I could not restrain my swell of affection for him as I re-settled my tie around my neck; it was perhaps hopelessly sentimental of me, but the pride that Watson took in my deductions was one of his most charming points. At least that pride had survived our intimacies of the night before.

Although judging from his behaviour just now, perhaps the outlook for future intimacies was not so dismal as I had feared. It was an encouraging thought.

When I came back to the sitting room, spic and span again, Watson was still drilling the inspector on the points of the case. He lifted a finger to me, asking for a moment to finish, but it was all too clear that Lestrade would not master the case so quickly. I departed a few moments later without Watson, ostensibly to get at least one of us to Lady Medowin's table on time, but also conveniently avoiding the peril of sharing the close and private confines of a four-wheeler with him. 

Watson arrived during the soup course, and I did not try to hide my smile at his flustered apologies. Undaunted by his disgrace, he promptly set about repairing his relations with our hostess. The young lady whom he had been supposed to escort in to dinner was very charming herself, and it seemed to me that Watson went a good step farther than manners required in wheedling her pardon. Not all of their conversation was audible to me, but it soon became clear that they had devised some private joke between themselves, exchanging conspiratorial smiles whenever Colonel Ferguson was particularly overbearing in his opinions. Watching Watson's admiration of and attendance upon the young lady was excruciating, and I could not help but wonder if his cleaving to her above everyone else at the table was a reaction against the night before, or even our moment together earlier that evening. By the time we finally thanked our hostess and departed, I felt much disappointed in my hopes for an encore of the previous night. I was short and snappish with him in the cab home, unwilling to exert myself overmuch in keeping my feelings to myself. The wounded looks he turned on me might have been nearly comical, if only I had been in better humour to enjoy them. On arriving at Baker Street, I turned down our usual nightcap and bade him a terse good night, retreating to my room for privacy.

It was another regrettably long night, with ample opportunity to regret my hastiness. Watson's cuffs and collar, my prizes from the night before, rebuked me from beneath my pillow, a trenchant reminder that I might yet have what I wanted — or at least a portion thereof — if only I were willing to set aside my pride for it. My pride seemed a nice point to stick at, seeing that I had given away most of it the night before.

Watson was not overly amiable at breakfast the next morning, pouring my tea but refraining from his usual running commentary over the outrages in the _Times._ At least he had deigned to appear in shirtsleeves again, which was a small comfort. I opened a new pot of marmalade — I did not again hazard inviting him to share with me — and wrestled with what to do. 

It was the perhaps the re-appearance his shirtsleeves which decided me on a course of action. Or perhaps it was only the tantalising forearms that lay just beneath.

While he was out at his club that day — entirely his own idea this time, as I had offered him no particular provocation at breakfast — I assembled a stack of wool appropriate to the garb of a merchant marine, and affixed to it a note inviting Watson to meet one "Captain Basil" — to wit, _me_ — at the Hope and Anchor in the Docklands that evening. Watson should come in the guise of Jack Wright, an able seaman "so taciturn as to make his nationality nearly indistinguishable." The last instruction was regrettably necessary: his usual tones would never have passed notice, and the last remnants of his Australian accent were too intimately tied to his actual history for his safety.

I left the clothing and note for him, then went to see to my own costume for the evening.

 

When Watson arrived at the Grope and Wanker, as the locals affectionately called the place, he deliberately looked over every patron, as if sizing everyone up or memorising every face. Predictably, the room responded to his provocation with an agitated hum; I could not have missed his entrance if I had tried. I stepped back among my compatriots and turned my face aside before Watson's inspecting gaze reached me. My closely-curled beard did the rest of the work, obscuring the lines of my features, and Watson failed to spot me in the crowd. I needed just a little more time to finish my conversation before I met him: after all, my appointments for the evening were not entirely manufactured. 

And yet it would have been just as honest to say that the entire evening was only a pretext for removing my Watson from his usual persona and environs. Watson had been willing to engage in activities as Harry Rigby that he would never have performed as himself; I hoped that Jack Wright would have the same disencumbering effect on him. 

It is exceedingly poor discipline for an experimenter to hope for one result over another in a trial, and yet hope I did.

I watched as Watson ordered a pint with no more than a grunt and a proffered coin, and rebuffed curious overtures with a flat, silent stare. I was not the only one in that room who found his person compelling that evening, and I was gratified to watch him turn down offers of companionship from women and men alike. Whether he did so only for the sake of the instructions I had given him, or because he had his own hopes for the evening, I could not tell.

It took him the better part of an hour, but he eventually spotted me in my knot of fellows, assisted in part, no doubt, by the way my own eyes kept returning to him. It seemed he had not been enjoying his time soaking up the local colour: there was a thrilling edge to how his eyes narrowed when he finally spied me. I deemed it unwise to push his good humour further, and bade my companions good night.

I made my way through the crowd to him, and putting up a foot up on the bench he was seated on, and bent close over my knee to shield our conversation from onlookers. "Quite the reputation you're earning yourself, 'Wright,'" I said into his ear. "That was Tickle Crawley you rebuffed earlier, and don't think they didn't notice." Tickle Crawley was a great bruiser of a man, rather more used to getting his way than not. I had been ready to step in if matters went awry, but Watson had handled it smoothly enough.

Watson seemed unimpressed by the seriousness of his transgression. " _Tickle Crawley,"_ he muttered in disgust, and my affection for him surged. 

"Give it another few hours," I whispered, "and they'll have built an impressive history for you, no backstory of your own required."

His glance burned with intent. "Does your business require a few more hours?" 

It was not the question of a man who had come to assist a friend with a case, but one who wished to get on to the next item on the agenda. His every low, dark syllable made clear what a correct and prudent answer should be.

I am proud to say that I did not react outwardly. My eyes did not slide shut so that I could better hear his impatience, nor did I tongue my lips in anticipation. I did not lean closer, nor even put a hand to his arm. 

I might, perhaps, have breathed more deeply.

"No," I said, my voice sounding strange in my ears. "No, it does not."

"Good," he declared, and I watched his throat as he downed the rest of his ale. 

" _Cap'n,"_ he prompted when I failed to stir myself, and I was reminded of his command the prior night, with his fist tight in the neck of my clothing, his voice commanding me to _strip._ I had the fleeting presence of mind to glance around the pub, checking for the undue interest of any of its denizens. Tickle Crawley's attention in particular was engaged elsewhere. I took Watson's elbow, and guided him to the door.

Two streets on, he abruptly pulled me into a dark passageway between buildings. It was not the venue that I would have chosen, but it would do. 

"Not here, farther on," I said, when he slowed two turnings in. He slid me a glance, but kept walking.

"Yes, here—" I said a few moments later, but he already had a fist in my collar, his other hand cupped around my skull. My back hit the rough brick wall, and I swallowed the rest of my sentence. He closed his fist in my hair and crowded close, his other hand dropping to press my flies. I pushed into his rough touch; I was not hard yet, but that would be only a matter of moments.

 _"Jack,"_ I said, having just enough presence of mind to remember his alias. I ducked my head to kiss him, but he used his grip in my hair to roughly turn my face from his. He instead set his teeth to the wool covering my shoulder, directly over the bruise he had left two nights before, and bit down hard. The thick layers of wool protected me from his teeth as well as they might protect the hypothetical Captain Basil from the sea, and yet the heat of the gesture had me pushing hard into his palm. " _Jack,"_ I said again, clutching at his waist, desperately wanting the name in my mouth to be _John._ He pulled back and spat the taste of wool from his mouth. His hand in my hair shook me once, roughly, in a rebuke for some unknown offense. My brain scrambled, searching the possibilities. I wanted desperately to please him.

He put his hand in my trousers, and my ability to think about the question stopped. He swiped his thumb once across the head of my prick, the sensation flooding me, then looked me directly in the eye while he brought his hand to his mouth and licked my fluids from his thumb. I surged forward to kiss him, but he put a hand on my chest and pushed me against the wall again. With a crooked, knowing smile, he went to his knees before me. I bit my lip to refrain from voicing my eager approval.

He worked at my flies, his hands gentler than just moments before, then took me into his mouth, velveteen and luxurious. My fingers wandered his face, doubly feeling the workings of his jaw and throat from within and without. Incongruously to the setting, he was taking his time with it, his pace slow and deliberate. It was far more than I had foreseen, when he dragged me into this semi-secluded _fornix_ and put me against the wall. 

And more, perhaps, than we had time for. "Police," I protested, my voice high with want.

He slowly drew off my cock, and the cold night air against my wet prick made me shudder. "Sod the jacks," he said in the remnants of his Australian accent. He nosed at my prick, then gave me a great, wicked grin. _"Sod… the… jacks,"_ he repeated with feeling, and then to prove his point, he held my gaze and took me to the root again. He drew off even more slowly than before, his tongue working at the underside of my prick. Then he unbuttoned his own flies and, taking himself in hand, repeated that long, deep stroke on my prick. The dual stimulus was too much, and I clamped my hands around his ears. 

He immediately pulled away and shook me off, taking my wrists to prevent me from grabbing him again. "No. You dictated the time and place and—" He took me in again in deliberate rebuke. 

"Jack," I protested weakly, my fingers twitching against nothing. God, his _mouth._

He drew off again. "You don't get to dictate the every particular, too," he growled, his voice thick with phlegm.

"Yes, all right," I agreed breathlessly, "Yes." He released my wrists, and I put my hands to the wall behind me, fingertips curling hard into the brickwork, for fear of offending him again. 

"Better," he approved, still with that commanding tone. And yet he slid a soothing hand up my belly, up inside the layers of wool. His other hand returned to his own cock. "Your part is only to stand there and be quiet. Only that." He looked me in the eye and wet his lips. 

I cursed and tilted my head back against the wall, fixing my gaze at the story opposite. He set to again, endeavouring to draw my brain out my prick. 

It was as I had observed before: Watson enjoyed the act for itself, and had spent some time perfecting it. But as skillful as his mouth and tongue were, it was the judder of his hand on his own cock, the rhythmic movement transmitted through his shoulder and neck to my own prick, that undid me. I came all too quickly, shuddering against the wall, and when I finished, Watson turned and spat my spend on the alley cobbles. Then he set his forehead against my hip, my softening cock brushing against his cheek, and he worked himself to his own completion. Breathless and reverent, I petted trembling fingers through his hair, relishing the feel of him against my leg and hip, savouring the soft, quiet noises of him. Shortly he was shuddering, too.

"Jack," I warned, a little while later. Watson's weight was heavy against me, solid and warm. I could have stayed so indefinitely with him, had it not been a public place and both of us in a compromising state. I minded less for myself than for him; it would not do for Watson to be caught so. _"Jack,"_ I said again, and he gave a bitter laugh against my hip. "We should go," I urged, and and relinquishing the touch of his hair under my fingers, I searched my pockets for a handkerchief.

He clasped my fingers for a moment as he took it, stroking his thumb across my fingertips — from the uneven drag of it, I had torn my nails on the brickwork. He made quick work of cleaning himself and stood, his body only inches from mine. There was a moment when his gaze caught on my lips. I did not pursue it, as much as I wanted to — he had made it very clear, both now and before, that he did not want my kisses. Then he glanced away, and the moment was lost in the awkwardness of putting ourselves to rights.

Presentable again, he stepped back and looked up and down the passageway. He turned back the way we had come, but I took his elbow to face him the other way. "Quicker this way," I instructed. Then, reluctant to relinquish his arm so soon, I shammed drunk, leaning heavily on him as we made our way up the passage. 

Watson lurched sideways a step, not expecting my weight, before correcting for it. _"Really,"_ he muttered to himself, but his hand came to cover mine in his elbow. We stumbled up the passage together, back toward the main road.


	3. Chapter 3

We might have continued on indefinitely like that, alley encounters in miscellaneous rough personas, had it not been for Watson. 

I had already deduced everything of importance, or so I thought. As I shammed drunk on his arm, I questioned only how often I might propose a repeat encounter without eventually coming to despise myself for it. Would Watson always require a case, or the pretense of one? I had no objection to manufacturing cases for him, but to entangle our genuine partnership with the facsimile of one, to risk his drawing back from the true cases if I became over-enthusiastic with the false ones... The thought was unendurable. But even as I pondered the problem, I remained aware of Watson's warmth against my side, the sudden swell of passerby on the main road, his hand raised for a cab… I timed my moment impeccably: while he was distracted, I smoothly bade him good night and melted back into the crowd.

His hand shot out, as quick as a striking snake, and grabbed my wrist. 

The world seemed to narrow to his eyes, to his hand on my wrist. I had long admired those lightning reflexes in our work together, but I had never expected to become their focus myself. I could have broken his grip, but did not. 

"Forgive me," he said. His eyes fairly glowed with reflected lamplight in the shadows under his cap. "I thought your business already finished tonight?" 

I hesitated, the lie on the tip of my tongue. It need not even be a lie — I could have profitably spent the next hour back at the Hope and Anchor, cultivating informants against some future need. Cultivating informants, as I tried to think of anything but Watson and his wicked mouth, wending his way homeward alone. 

"I have," I admitted.

He grimaced, something profound and complicated. He squeezed my wrist. "Come home with me," he urged. Then he quite deliberately turned away to hail his cab.

I was still standing beside him when he succeeded.

The hansom ride was an excruciating series of silences, with ample opportunity to regret the decision that had landed me there. I did not outwardly betray my agitation, but with each passing street, I ratcheted downward my estimation of how often I might comfortably arrange a repeat assignation between us. Watson, for his part, _fidgeted,_ now inspecting the scrapes on his knuckles, now re-crossing his legs, now gazing out at the passing gas lamps. I usually enjoy the wealth of silent commentary that Watson offers on every situation, but that evening I found it unbearable. I steadfastly set my gaze on the passing streetlamps, which unfortunately left me with little to occupy myself but memories of his clever, velvet mouth.

Perhaps I, too, fidgeted.

"Next time," Watson ventured, after clearing his throat for the fourth time. "Erm. That is. Perhaps we needn't go all the way across town, hm?"

I looked at him in surprise.

He eyed the hatch above us, and satisfied the cabbie was not eavesdropping, continued in an undertone, "Of course, I have no objection to the occasional change of venue as a... a _treat,_ or a change of... scenery. But you hardly find it necessary, do you? The other night was satisfactory, I thought? I'm not casting aspersions," he rushed on, leaving me no space to answer. "I've known men who had far stricter, ah, _requirements,_ and... hrm, yes." He winced, then lurched onward, "Mind you, I have no real objection to… to being _Harry,_ or _Jack,_ or… _Tickle Crawley."_ And yet the unhappy twist of his mouth strongly suggested that he did find it objectionable. "It's only that the Docklands is such a terribly long cab ride, you know." 

The entire speech was extraordinary — at another time I would know more about his history with men of apparently narrow and specific tastes, and damn his scruples about their privacy — and yet my attention was fixed on the suggestion that our other personas had been _my_ requirement. 

"You have no real objection…?" I prompted.

He grimaced. "I suppose that I ought to be flattered that you prefer me to common Docklands muscle. The genuine article was right there to be had, after all, and easily enough, I should imagine. No need for me to come all the way out from Westminster." He hesitated. "Although I suppose it might have been prudence. In which case, I expect I should be grateful that my person can serve at all." Nothing about his manner indicated gratitude. "Such tastes are substantially more dangerous than alkaloids in our best china, I should think. Oh, look, we're at Marylebone already." He stared avidly at edifices he saw near-daily since removing to Baker Street.

"Watson." 

He laughed off-handedly, forced and wooden. His manicure was perfect, and yet he inspected it again. "Really, forget I mentioned it. A cab ride is no inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, not if your—"

"Watson," I interrupted, more firmly than before. "One of your premises is incorrect."

He looked at me. His expression was a perfect mask; I could read nothing on his face. It seemed that at least twice in the past forty-eight hours I had been foolishly, blitheringly wrong about his desires; I hoped I was not being so again. Beside my thigh, where he could not see, I pressed my nails into my palm, and took courage from the sting of it.

"The genuine article sits beside me," I braved. 

He said nothing for a long moment. "Oh," he said, and then again, _"Oh."_ He looked down; the brim of his cap shaded his face. He smoothed his borrowed dungarees over his knee, and we bumped along like that for a few more streets. "So. Jack Wright…?" 

"I understood him to be a requirement of yours. You'd shown no interest until the Harry Rigby affair."

 _"I'd_ shown no interest...? You're as unreadable as a Sphinx. Until Harry Rigby I hadn't a clue I wouldn't offend."

"We're both fools then," I observed. Mindful of the cabbie just without, I leaned toward his shoulder and lowered my voice. "I devoutly hope you have no objection to sharing the bed of a man unable to grasp the most obvious facts laid before him?"

He smiled to himself. Our faces were so close that he could have turned his head and kissed me. Some reckless part of myself hoped he would. "Not in the least."

Pleased beyond words, I sat back into my own space. 

Watson is a man of action, and when we arrived at Baker Street, he briskly paid for the cab, ushered me inside and up the steps, turned up the gas, and locked our sitting room door. "Your coat," he prompted, and I turned to let him take it from my shoulders. 

While he did so, however, my eyes fell on a jar sitting on our breakfast table. "What's this?" I asked. It had not been there before I had left for the Docklands.

Behind me, Watson made an impolite noise. "Trust you to get distracted by marmalade." I could hear the rustle of fabric as he hung our coats and hats.

On closer inspection, it was indeed a jar of marmalade. I didn't recognise the maker, but the city of manufacture and the generous quantity of visible rind both boded well. "Where is this from?"

"I picked it up on my way home from the club."

"But you watched me open a fresh pot this morning."

"Yes, well," he said, unusually gruff. "It made me think of you. All marmalade does, really."

I turned back to look at him. He was blushing. 

"John," I said, hefting the jar in my hand. I weighed his blush against his probable route home from his club, the errands he might have run on the way, the various shops from which marmalade was sold, and the unfamiliarity of the jar's maker. All told, I doubted very much that he had simply seen this jar in passing. _"John,"_ I said again, pleased, and his colour deepened further. 

Kissing him seemed a very simple thing just then, but when I stepped forward to do so, he stepped back. 

I froze where I was, reviewing what I might have misunderstood this time.

"The beard," he said. And then, before my hurt could bloom fully, he added, "I promised myself that the next time I kissed you, it'd be as myself. And as yourself."

The sensation that bloomed in my chest was very different from the one that had initially threatened. _"John,"_ I said again. Not being allowed to kiss him in that moment seemed very cruel.

"Besides, that thing is moth-eaten and horrible," he continued. "The only thing worse would be a goatee."

I laughed, despite the egregious lie: the piece was well-made and well-cared-for, as was all of my costumery. "Then I suppose I had best remove it. Coming?" 

In my room, I took up my solvent jar and brush and watched in my dressing table mirror as Watson picked his way among the flotsam of my belongings, closing drapes and lighting lamps. I had only just begun painting the leading edge of the beard's lace backing when Watson stopped to eye the bed, piled high with my cast-aside clothing and rejected items for the costumes of 'Jack Wright' and 'Captain Basil.' 

"Oh, just get rid of all that, it doesn't matter where," I instructed, lest he suggest we remove to his room. I wanted him in my bed, where his scent would linger, even if he did not.

He raised an eyebrow at me, but gathered up the heap of clothing and found a place for it beyond the end of my bed, considerately managing to keep intact the crude organisation of the items already there. My bed cleared, he sat down on it to remove his boots. I had just decided that I rather enjoyed the look of that, the easy familiarity of his using my bed for a convenient seat, when he stood again, shouldered off his braces, and began stripping to the waist. 

I came to a stop, the better to watch. His skin gleamed beautifully in the lamplight. "That's hardly fair," I commented. 

"No?" he smirked. Holding my eye in the mirror, he arranged himself on my bed and stretched a languid arm over his head, blatantly posing for me. With the other hand, he flicked open the button at his waistband, then the next button below it. Holding my eye in the mirror, he deliberately stroked his length through his trousers. 

My mouth went dry. He might well pose; he was entirely captivating. Barring the scarring at his shoulder and the lewdness of his posture, he could have graced any museum. I had certainly seen no lovelier there; those sculpted beauties were all so idealised as to be disappointingly empty. But John Watson's history was laid out in his skin and body, his character in his eyes and the set of his mouth, all of it available to be read by any ardent observer. 

I, of course, was enrapt.

Watson, however, was not. He frowned and shifted, twisting his neck, then reached beneath my pillow. To my dismay, he came back with his collar. It was perhaps a sign of my distraction that I had not foreseen its discovery. Not recognising it for what it was, Watson tossed it to the floor. "How did you manage to get a collar under your pillow?" he groused, then rooted beneath the pillow again. "And a cuff? No, a pair of cuffs. Really, Holmes." The offending items followed the first. "Speaking of, what horrible thing did you do to mine, anyway? Or are you saving them back in the hopes of ruining some distressingly peaceful tea time?"

"I've never disrupted a tea-time in my life," I retorted, hoping he'd be distracted by the blatant falsehood. 

But it was too late; he was already up on one elbow, peering over the edge of the bed. "Hang on, those are _my_ cuffs."

"Are they?" I deliberately returned my eyes to my solvent brush and beard, refusing to let my discomfort show. "I should have thought them mine."

"Really, Holmes, I should know my own handwriting." 

_Damn and shite,_ but he had taken notes on his cuffs when we were at the morgue that day.

"How did they end up under your pillow?" he asked.

"Oh, you know how it is, things land where they will. Would you believe, just the other day I found an articulated snake's skeleton in the butter dish."

He ignored the flagrant absurdity. "No, that doesn't wash. My cravat was folded, my jewelry laid out neatly. _That_ required focus and care; my collar and cuffs wouldn't have simply fallen somewhere by accident. So you put them there deliberately. Hid them, against… Against what?" 

I grimaced into the mirror. As much as I usually enjoyed watching him doggedly build a chain of logic when we were on a case, it was anything but pleasant now. 

"And why under your _pillow?_ Even if it was the haste of the moment — but there would have been no need for haste, you were alone half that night — that was two nights ago. You've had ample opportunity to move them somewhere better since then. More secure, and more comfortable. So, under your pillow is precisely where you wanted them…" 

His eyes came up to meet mine in the mirror. There was no error in his reasoning. I felt entirely exposed.

He blew out a long breath and fell back to my pillow. "Oh, thank _Christ."_ His hand came up to cover his eyes.

"I beg your pardon?" I asked, bewildered.

He rolled over to look at me, amused and… I should have said _tender,_ had I not believed it wishful thinking. "I'm not the only one with an inconvenient attachment."

His words should have been a relief, but they took me badly. Surely he already knew that I was besotted with him. Even despite the earlier misunderstanding, I had been ridiculously transparent. The mere thought of it — my transparency, and his apparent obliviousness to it — made me cross.

"The only thing that I'm inconveniently attached to, I assure you, is this beard." I gestured impatiently at it in the mirror. I should have removed it completely by now, but he had been so distracting with his _skin_ and his _posing_ and his damnably attractive _self_ that I was only half through the job: one side of the beard hung limply from my jaw, while the other was still firmly attached to my face, just one more evidence of my utter ridiculousness in front of him.

He paused, considering, before he smiled and rolled to his feet. "Let me help," he said, and clearing a nearby stool of my things, he dragged it close to my chair. He sat, his knees and thighs jumbled close between mine, and plucked the brush and solvent from my hands. But instead of using them, he cupped the bared half of my jaw in his hand and kissed me.

I fear I made some startled, _wanting_ noise. His mouth was so unutterably John Watson, expressive and clever and sure. His kiss was a match for all the rest of him, and how he could _possibly_ believe I would not recognise him through something so simple as a change of clothing or accent, could _possibly_ imagine him as anyone but his true self… It was infuriating, and I pulled at his leg, wanting him closer. He obligingly tipped forward off his seat and onto his knees close between my thighs, which brought him near enough that I could hold him properly. I set my fingertips against his skin as I kissed him.

"This is ridiculous," I complained, when he finally pulled back again. My jaw, still tacky with spirit gum, tried to cling to his hand. It was a wonder that the rest of me didn't do the same.

He laughed and found his seat again. "These things usually are." He took up the brush and solvent again. "Ridiculous or heart-breaking, and I generally prefer ridiculous. Chin up," he instructed, and began meticulously working the solvent behind the beard's lace backing. 

His touch at my jaw was maddeningly steady, and I had nowhere to look but his lashes, his throat — oh, but he had an _exquisite_ throat — the line of his shoulders, the expanse of his warm torso. It was entirely too much to ask me not to touch. I let my fingers drift across his stomach, and he gave a pleased hum. The lightly-curled hair of his breast was soft under my hand. His nipple tightened charmingly when I thumbed it, but was not as sensitive as it might have been, so I moved on.

"You can touch," he said, when I changed course to avoid his scarred shoulder.

"You didn't like me to the other night," I observed, but I touched the shiny, inelastic tissue anyway, the scar itself marred by delicate fissures and stretch marks. Far more engrossing than his scar was the fine twitch of his muscles under his skin.

"I didn't like it becoming part of a... a character." His mouth held the same twist of distaste as when he spoke of _not objecting_ to playing Harry or Jack.

"I never would," I said, stung anew at the allegation. "You were never anyone but yourself. As if I could ever mistake you for another, even on purpose."

He smiled at that, little more than a crinkling around his eyes, but all the more genuine for it. "Well, you _are_ Sherlock Holmes." He at last eased the beard away from my face and set it aside. "Not finished yet," he warned, and liberally painted my newly bared jaw with solvent, rinsing away the lingering residue of the gum. "Patience," he counseled. 

"You or me?" 

"Quite," he agreed, and I laughed, not knowing if I was giddier from the solvent fumes under my nose or his skin under my hands. I desperately wanted to kiss him again.

"There," he said, when he had finally wiped away the last of the solvent. He plucked at some bit of lint on my jaw, the movement initially business-like before it became unmistakably a caress. This time when I lifted my chin to kiss him, he did not turn aside, but met me halfway.

It soon became clear that our respective seats were too narrow and precarious for that kind of work. "Bed?" I suggested.

He cast my bed a wary glance. "I suppose that depends what on what else you have hidden in it."

"You're entirely safe. I didn't think ahead to set any booby-traps. You've caught me deplorably flat-footed."

"Oh? You'd drive me out already?"

He was being deliberately obtuse. "More likely something in the line of a snare."

"Ah." He cleared his throat, then glanced away. "That could be arranged, perhaps," he broached delicately. "If you liked." 

His manner minded me of our earlier conversation in the cab, of his reference to his history with men of apparently narrow and specific tastes. Some of which, it seemed, might involve securing one another to the furnishings…

"No," he said firmly, catching and holding my eye. "No deductions. Not in this. You shall ask me properly, if you wish to know." He cleared his throat, "Or if you are yourself… hrm, _interested."_

My affection for him swelled, notwithstanding the implied criticism of my deductions. It was not undeserved, however; we might both have spared ourselves some grief, had we handled matters differently. "Shall I?"

"Yes, you shall," he insisted, with as much firmness as before. And then, under his breath, he added, "And we shall both survive the conversation somehow."

I laughed, delighted with him. "In the morning, perhaps." Or perhaps later in the night, when both of us were sated, if he deigned to linger in my bed. 

I rather thought he might. 


End file.
